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So. Would anyone like to be pimped into So You Think You Can Dance? Because if you would, I have a post for you!
For those of you who don't know, SYTYCD is a reality competition show with people eliminated weekly, something like American Idol, only with dancers. But SO MUCH MORE AWESOME. The quality of contestants is more like Top Chef--a mix of promising people just out of school and already-working professionals looking for a little more recognition. And, in the case of SYTYCD, for training: the show's raison d'etre is to take dancers who are really good at a certain thing (ballet, say, or ballroom dancing) and make them do completely different stuff. But not willy-nilly: they're partnered, often with somebody who has a different specialty so they can learn from each other; and they work with a choreographer. The partnering also means that the contestants are really close, since they spend so much time working together, which is also fun to watch. The judging panel is usually somewhere on a scale from "totally positive" to "supportive with constructive criticism", and (with the exception of a recent celebrity-guest-judge trend) the judges are all dancers themselves. And, frankly, it's just entertaining to watch.
Tomorrow night is "Vegas week", where they bring all the successful auditioners to Las Vegas and put them through an intensive boot camp where they have to learn a partnered dance in each of the 4 main "genres" the show divides its dances into (contemporary, ballroom, hip hop, and musical theatre) as well as dance a solo or two. It's usually pretty interesting, and not as torturous as the equivalent Hollywood Week on American Idol, so this seemed like a good time to pimp you all. :D
Oh, and I forgot the crown jewel: far and away the best host on reality TV, Cat Deeley.
( Follow this link to the cave of wonders that is a sampling of some of the best dances ever performed on the show )
And, finally, I should say that I wasn't that into dance before I started watching this show, but they have a range of styles & intro packages & judges with different knowledge sets, and they're aiming for a fairly general audience, so even if--say--you don't really always get story from ballet the way some people seem to, you can still have a good time watching this show.
For those of you who don't know, SYTYCD is a reality competition show with people eliminated weekly, something like American Idol, only with dancers. But SO MUCH MORE AWESOME. The quality of contestants is more like Top Chef--a mix of promising people just out of school and already-working professionals looking for a little more recognition. And, in the case of SYTYCD, for training: the show's raison d'etre is to take dancers who are really good at a certain thing (ballet, say, or ballroom dancing) and make them do completely different stuff. But not willy-nilly: they're partnered, often with somebody who has a different specialty so they can learn from each other; and they work with a choreographer. The partnering also means that the contestants are really close, since they spend so much time working together, which is also fun to watch. The judging panel is usually somewhere on a scale from "totally positive" to "supportive with constructive criticism", and (with the exception of a recent celebrity-guest-judge trend) the judges are all dancers themselves. And, frankly, it's just entertaining to watch.
Tomorrow night is "Vegas week", where they bring all the successful auditioners to Las Vegas and put them through an intensive boot camp where they have to learn a partnered dance in each of the 4 main "genres" the show divides its dances into (contemporary, ballroom, hip hop, and musical theatre) as well as dance a solo or two. It's usually pretty interesting, and not as torturous as the equivalent Hollywood Week on American Idol, so this seemed like a good time to pimp you all. :D
Oh, and I forgot the crown jewel: far and away the best host on reality TV, Cat Deeley.
( Follow this link to the cave of wonders that is a sampling of some of the best dances ever performed on the show )
And, finally, I should say that I wasn't that into dance before I started watching this show, but they have a range of styles & intro packages & judges with different knowledge sets, and they're aiming for a fairly general audience, so even if--say--you don't really always get story from ballet the way some people seem to, you can still have a good time watching this show.